Last week, Sam and Dan of God’s Property Radio ran my interview with Kent Hovind with commentary on the front end and the back end.
They included the still anonymous, as far as I can tell, creator of #FreeKent. Â They talk a bit about me and raise an interesting question around 1:40:00 or a little after. Â Essentially they are trying to figure out why I have put so much energy into the Kent Hovind drama. Â Another person who has been asking the same question is my covivant. Â She doesn’t put it this way but the essence of her questioning of my attention to the Hovind matter is “Shouldn’t this be a case of not your circus, not your monkeys?”
So this post is about me, but I will be giving a bit of background and some definitions before I get to me.
About Kent Hovind
Kent Hovind is one of the leading lights of Young Earth Creationism, the notion that there is scientific evidence that supports a hyper literal reading of the Book of Genesis (KJV). Â Among the implications of YEC are that the physical universe is about 6,000 years old and that people and dinosaurs existed contemporaneously. Â Kent has been in federal prison for over 8 years on tax related charges. Â With his release nearing he is facing new charges related to filings on properties which the government seized.
The Hovindicators
I have coined the term Hovindicator, but credit should really go to the #FreeKent creator who inspired me by coining Hovindication as the true goal of the Free Kent movement. Â Kent Hovind should not just be released from prison and the current charges dropped. Â His previous conviction should be reversed and Congress should investigate. Â Rudy Davis, the most vocal Hovindicator has boiled their arguments to a handy mnemonic HAIR58V
H- other people have done much more heinous stuff
A – atheists are the ones after Kent
I – Â Kent is innocent
R- Judge Rodgers is anti Christian
5 – 501(c)(3) is a trap designed by the government for churches
8 – He has already done eight years (BTW that is the argument I find persuasive)
V- If there is a crime, it is a victimless crimes
Ernie Land is more or less Hovindicator in chief. Â He is an old friend and counselor to Kent and other Hovindicators defer to him. Â I also interviewed Ernie
Here is the big thing I learned from Ernie that resolved something that has always puzzled me. Â In order to accept either YEC or the alternative income tax theories that Kent Hovind has embraced, while insisting he is not a tax protester, you have to accept the existence of massive conspiracies. Â In the case of YEC, it is virtually the entire hard science community and in the case of the income tax theories it includes the entire federal judiciary.
Ernie is quite up front in maintaining that those types of conspiracies are going on ultimately controlled by Satan. Â The Hovindicators seem to be quick to see the conspiracies at work. Â Starting around 33:00 I give Ernie a hard time about Rudy Davis knocking the Jesuits, who are a staple of conspiracy theorists. Â I had eight years of Jesuit education and admire them quite a bit. Â If you go back to the Sam and Dan interview you will note that his somehow got translated into me having been a Jesuit for eight years. Â I have to tell you we had very inspiring Jesuits at Xavier High School. Â I think one of my classmates actually became one, but I didn’t. Â At Xavier we also had Junior ROTC and wore uniforms issued by the Army, marched and saluted and had classes in military science. Â Major Smullins the Senior Army Instructor, just back from Vietnam, gave us lectures on the psychology of leadership and counterinsurgency. Â That doesn’t make me a Vietnam veteran, although I may have created that impression by accident once. Â So Ernie, despite what his detractors claim Kent has a much stronger case for putting Doctor before his name than you have for putting S.J. after mine.
The most prominent Hovindicator, so far, is probably Wiley Drake, who was second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2006 and a Fox News staple for a while when he prayed for our President’s death. Â He may well be in Pensacola as I write this.
The aggressive attitude of the Hovindicators brings to mind the tenacity of Joshua Chamberlain, who unable to retreat and out of ammunition decided to charge reasoning that there would be the advantage of moving down the hill.
Hovindhaters
Bob Baty, whose thorough coverage on Kent Hovind and Jo Hovind v USA – IRSÂ qualifies him as a Hovindologist, can slide into Hovindhate from time to time as when he speculates on Kent’s relationship with a young lady. Â Hovindicators have encouraged me to renounce him entirely, but if I dropped a source due to an unfounded speculation I’d have to stop listening to just about everybody. Â Still I’m a little aggravated at Bob for that one and also his somewhat obnoxious combative style.
Hovindologists
Hovindologists have for one reason or another become fascinated by this story and have taken to investigating it. Â They have varying opinions about Kent and the various issues and unlike Hovindicators and Hovindhaters will modify their opinions as new information appears or they think more deeply on the subject. Â I think Bob Baty still qualifies as a Hovindologist, although his combative style makes his status as an unbiased observer shaky.
Nick Lally of the Creation Science Hall of Fame would qualify as a Hovindologist, although he has not been active. Â He greatly admires Kent and thinks he is in prison out of principle, a perspective that I share, actually, but he has not bought the rest of the Hovindication package.
Probably the sharpest up and coming Hovindologist is Dee Holmes, to whom I must credit the term Hovindology. Â She just put together a really good FAQ, which promises to be revised.
And of course, I count myself a Hovindologist. Good evidence of that is that both sides will toss brickbats at me from time to time. Â Of course the point of this post is to examine why I am a Hovindologist and we’ve taken a long time getting there, but I must mention one more term I have coined.
Conventionally Tax Compliant
One of the more difficult claims to discuss with Hovindicators is the notion that Kent Hovind has not broken any laws. This is one of the bedrock principles of Hovindication. Â In order to advance that discussion I have coned the term “conventional tax compliance”. Â CTT people obey the tax law, as most people understand it. Â The quickest way to tell whether a CTT person should file a tax return is to go to the instructions and look at the “Who Must File” section. Â Of course that is not itself the law, but if you have time and patience you will always be able to find law that backs it up. Â I have made up a handy mnemonic for the law that backs up the 1040 Â 26-1-61-6012. Â Title 26 of the United States Code – Section 1 imposes an income tax on individuals – Section 61 defines income very broadly including by way of example compensation for services – Section 6012 requires filing for individuals whose income is over pretty low thresholds.
Kent Hovind may be sincerely stating that in his view he has not broken any laws, but I don’t think even he would maintain that he is CTT. Â His son Eric, on the other hand, runs his creation science ministry in a conventionally tax compliant manner and apparently, knock on wood, has not had any IRS troubles as is true of other creation science ministries. Â Even Ernie Land agrees that a CTT Kent Hovind would not have had the IRS knocking on his door. Â That is the basis for my belief that from the government side it is about the taxes not the dinosaurs.
How I Became A Hovindologist
I’m a tax blogger. Â If you want to know about the tax blogosphere, you might want to read my post The Discerning Person’s Guide To The Tax Blogosphere. Â The longer I am at it the more I start feeling like a journalist. Â It’s been five years and I have over 1,200 posts up. Â Over 30, maybe 40, now, mention Kent Hovind and his travails. Â That’ quite a lot, although hardly the level of obsession that Sam and Dan initially attributed to me.
There are other ways I come up with material, but Hovind starts with the most common one. Â A decision of the United States Tax Court. Â For many years, I have at least looked at every single one of them and have read many if not most in their entirety. Â I often find that the story behind the tax story is even more interesting than the tax story. Â So I often do additional research. Â Easy stuff like googling. E-mails to experts and principals. Â Sometimes even interviews. Â I also like to spice up posts with quirky video clips and pop culture references.
So the Tax Court decision in the case of Jo Delia Hovind in the fall on 2012 was right up my ally. Â It is a really great story in and of itself and it allowed some really good video clips. Â But when I googled Kent Hovind. Â Holy shit.
The post got pretty good traffic and lots of comments.  Among the commenters was my most constant commenter Robert Baty who had been trying to get me interested in Young Earth Creationism, one of his three. as far as I know, obsessions.  The great advantage of following one of Baty’s obsessions is that he will do a lot of research for you even if you don’t ask him.  I probably would have missed the Tax Court’s order in Kent’s case, for example, since it was not a full decision, but Bob Baty was on top of it.
So in a sense the answer is simple. Â It is a tax story. Â I find it interesting. Â My readers find it interesting. Â I follow it. Â Now it seems, thanks to the Hovindicators, that it might be one of the very few tax stories that breaks out of the tax ghetto making me willing to actually spend some money to follow it more thoroughly. Â The last time I did that was when I got to interview presidential candidate Jill Stein
There Is More
The Hovind case is something of a perfect storm of many things that I find very interesting.  I have followed churches getting in trouble for using corporation sole.  I have followed people with alternative views of taxation such as Irwin Schiff.  Talking to Ernie Land makes me feel like I have stepped into some of the books of my favorite horror writer F. Paul Wilson whose Repairman Jack lives in a universe where the world really is in the grip of a mind boggling conspiracy.  The theories that the Hovindicators tap into have deep roots in American history, my original calling.  Now I find that Kent Hovind has done a brilliant send-up of the prison industrial complex which give me significant common ground with him.
If you look at my blog you will find other story arcs running through it. Â There is the Son-of-Boss debacle, the tax implications of gay marriage and the parsonage exclusion, which happens to be Bob Baty’s primary obsession.
The Kent Hovind story may be the most absorbing, but it is not really sui generis. Clearly I will be on it for a while longer. Â The building mainstream coverage will allow for some more forbes.com posts soon.
How I See It Now
I’m still virtually certain that from the government side, this is not at all a matter of religious persecution. Â For all his talk of not being a tax protester, Kent’s behavior is tax defiant.
On the other hand Kent’s view that it is a matter of religious principle, is probably sincerely held. Â The best evidence of that is that he clearly could have organized his life to legitimately pay very little in the way of income tax.
I also think that Kent is an original thinker and in a way brilliant. Â The King James Version of the Bible is, with the works of Shakespeare, the bedrock of modern English. Â The Bible has an enormous amount of deep spiritual wisdom and is in many ways part of the basis of Western civilization. Â One of the primary reasons for widespread literacy in early modern times was so that people could read the Bible. It is understandable that some people become attached to the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy. Â When you combine that with hyperliteralism there is enormous amount of cognitive dissonance with post Enlightenment science.
One way to resolve the dissonance is to figure the establishment science must be wrong. Â That implies a massive conspiracy. Â Once you buy that Kent and Ernie and Rudy and Sam and Dave start making sense.
I don’t buy it myself. Â Fundamentally it is because I have at a deep level an optimistic view of human nature, except for sociopaths. Â And the one thing that sociopaths are not very good at is conspiring with one another. Â Sociopaths need minions who at a deep level are mensch. Â I think that there are sociopaths involved in creating the material that supports the alternative tax theories, but I am virtually certain that Kent and any of the Hovindicators I have named are not among them.
I don’t think the cause of tax compliance is being furthered by Kent’s prosecution and I hope that the case goes away without egging on further tax mishegas.
If Kent ever gets to testify before Congress, I hope it about prison issues, where I am pretty much with him – except for the flogging and the increase in executions.
Stay tuned. Â And be compassionate.
It could be that I have more in common with Kent Hovind than I do with Peter J. Reilly, but Peter puts up with me while Kent and his people seem to be the real "haterz" and some of that is commonly directed my way.
Peter and I have had a good run together.
I don't mind his criticism for I realize that even he, like Kent Hovind and his crew of BatyHaterz, sometimes get things wrong.
One of the techniques used successfully by Kent and his people is to engage in "paper terrorism" which is a common sovereign citizen ploy, and with modern technology its not just "paper" but all sorts of technological stuff like is found on websites and social media.
Todd S. Greene, who I used to run with quite a bit when I mostly jousted over young-earth creationism before vanquishing all my foes, once observed that such things as Peter has mentioned about me is simply part of my on-line persona designed to illustrate certain problems and hypocrisy in my adversaries.
Todd somehow picked up on it, while others seem not to notice.
I am more than willing to calmly and reasonably discuss what I might have said about Kent and his personal relationships, if only there were a reasonable adversary from Kent's side to take it up while we wait for more substantive developments in the Hovind case.
One of the BatyHaterz recently disclosed, to my glee, that they had read all that I had to say on the Hovind subject and that I should just shut up.
Kent and his people have yet to start up the high road and so I am only barely able to keep them in sight in my rear view mirror. I do not and am not going to be stooping their lowly depths when it comes to discussing these important public issues.
The Gea issue is a very good illustration, in my opinion, of how they operate. They try to generate, or have others generate, all sorts of material that they can comb over for some molehills to try and make into mountains and go on endlessly as a diverstion from actually, openly, honestly, substantively talking about Kent Hovind's legal problems and his responsibilities regarding what his wife Jo has gone through.
Peter, I thought the above is an excellent introduction and review of what it is all about, and there are a few that might actually be willing to "dig into the details" and find the light and disregard the Hovind "noise and darkness".
Wiley Drake's most recent program, I just noticed, has him boasting about being a well-trained private investigator and so he claims we should believe him when he says he has used his skills of investigation to discover that Kent is innocent and blah, blah, blah. After this long, I am less inclined to give him and his the benefit of the doubt and so express my opinion that he and his just lie about this stuff.
We don't however, as Kent and his people like to do, need to quibble endlessly over who is the liar. We need to "dig into the details" and as you suggested, follow the evidence to where it leads.
The Hovindicators and BatyHaterz have a lot of catching up to do if they want to join me in some reasonable conclusions as to where the present evidence leads.
Catch me if you can Hovindicators and BatyHaterz.
Anonymous snipers and whiners need not respond except to show your hypocrisy!
everyone knows you guys are lying and everything at the free kent hovind website shows you are lying. heck you all admit you are lying and making up stuff about dr. and pastor kent hovind.
Ipse dixit from an anonymous whiner noted!
Typical of Hovindicators and BatyHaterz!
Come out some time and maybe we can talk about something substantive to do with Kent's legal problems.
I'd just like to state up front that Robert and I disagree on Gea's place in the Kent Hovind scheme of things. After listening to Hovind on calls and advising females who write into him with Bible questions, I have to disagree that Gea is a "girlfriend." (Hopefully I'll still be an admin of the Facebook page after this.)
I fell into Hovindology by accident. I was (and remain) endlessly fascinated by the many varieties of sovereign citizens, the origin of sovereign citizen thought, its spread into communities I would have never expected to take it up and how it's now moved over the border into Canada and across the pond to the UK (and maybe even the Republic of Ireland, I still need to check that out). As someone who had her mind made over back in the '80s in law school, the idea that there's a legal framework outside of the standard legal framework, and people are insisting on working through this alternate view of the law (and for the most part, being quite unsuccessful at it) is kind of amazing to me.
To me, Kent Hovind is simply the most colorful of the lot. I think he's more "accessible" than most, despite being in jail. People repost his old creationism videos every day on YouTube. He has a passionate following. I don't agree with his religious beliefs nor do I share his creationism. However, neither hold an interest for me, it's not why I'm documenting Kent's trials and tribulations. It's the sovereign citizen beliefs.
That said, I do want to make it clear that I don't believe up front that Kent's guilty of the crimes he's accused of. That's up to the trier of fact, the jury, and we have yet to see the evidence the US government is going to put on. I could see a few holes in the government's case, particularly when it comes to the notice given to Kent not to file any more liens or lis pendens on the property. I am still investigating, but I believe Judge Rodgers may have told Creation Science Evangelism only. Since Kent is in prison, I don't know how much of an alter ego CSE is. We'll just have to see the evidence.
What I would hope to see is Kent acquitted by a jury of his peers and getting released to his family and starting his three years of probation. There are worse options which I will not go into. I do think Kent will be rather shocked at how the creationism world has been somewhat overwhelmed by Ken Ham, Answers in Genesis, the Creation Museum and the proposed Ark Park. But I also believe there are a lot of people looking forward to seeing and hearing "Dr Dino" again in the flesh.
Thanks Dee. BTW I forgot to mention we also share an interest in Scientology.
I think it would be much better if the case were quietly dropped. Kent being acquitted would egg on the crazies.
Your job is safe, Deana!
My comments regarding the Gea issue are generally and conveniently misinterpreted and/or misunderstood.
I have additional comments on that issue in the discussion thread on the matter at:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=612212435580096&id=339508739517135
I don't see any problem in folks forming an opinion as to Kent's guilt as to the charges he has already been convicted on as well as the new charges.
Hovindicators and BatyHaterz sure don't mind letting you know what they think about that, and it is standard operating procedure in our culture to do so.
I happen to think Kent was guilty of what he's already been convicted of and which, as I recall, the prosecutors noted were only a sampling of his criminal activities over the years.
I also think Kent is guilty as charged regarding the present charges.
As to the present charges, they include conspiracy, mail fraud, and criminal contempt.
I am quite well aware of the notion of "innocent until proven guilty", but that is a judicial/legal principle quite unrelated to the practical, popular, public inquiry into the subject.
Criminals are guilty of criminal activity at such time as they commit such acts.
I can judge them guilty of such things regardless of what "we the people" do regarding the matter, or I can find them innocent, or I can abstain from such judgments.
The issue in Kent's case is whether or not "we the people" are going to sanction Kent Hovind for his alleged crimes. To do that, there is a process by which one has to first be convicted, or plead to some settlement.
Kent has pretty much conceded he'll get a guilty verdict and why should I argue with that prophecy, though I disagree with Kent as to why that should be the case.
However, Kent's ace in the hole is "jury nullification" and he and his Hovindicators and BatyHaterz seem determined with their blitz to influence one or more jurors to acquit Kent regardless of the law and the evidence against him. We may be seeing a discussion of jury tampering if the case goes to trial.
Kent was convicted and is being sanctioned for such crimes as he was found guilty of having committed, and his people are welcome to continue to claim he is innocent, even as Kent also claims. We might banter about the details regarding that to the extent of our time, talent and interest, but individual citizens' opinions on that are not determinative as to whether "we the people" will sanction Kent or let him go. That is left to others.
As Peter suggested in his article, I tend to follow the weight of the evidence and am quite open to bantering about those details. I have not found Kent's people so inclined.
They make for great theater and as the 2015 Cliven Bundy event draws closer, Dee might be shown to be on the right track in suggesting the sovereign citizen aspects of the case trump the creationism-church issues near and dear to Kent's most vocal supporters.
Here's a very short video clip of two of the folks leading the charge for Kent and who just might be showing up at the Pensacola demonstrations this week, next week and next month.
Look familiar?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhbHK85RjLI (less than 2 minutes)
If you don't have the 2 minutes to spare, just jump to the 50 second mark and watch a few seconds.
Peter, I think Kent's past the point of no return as far as getting out of this unscathed. I do think he should have let the US follow the 2009 order, sell the land piecemeal, and once the government collected the $430,400, turn back the rest of the land to the Hovinds.
That said, Kent Hovind's legal trials and tribulations are absolutely nothing compared to the crazy that is Scientology! Tony Ortega over at the Underground Bunker does a great job covering all things Scientology.
again free kent hovind website shows you are liars. they have an article where you all admit you are lying on purpose.
Anonymous
It is worth noting that I give a link to the #FreeKent website near the beginning of the article.
Clarification: I don't believe Kent is guilty of the 2014 charges because he has not been tried by a jury of his peers and the US government's evidence has not been exposed.
Yay typing skills.
Dee: Robert, me and Kent think Kent is guilty because Kent has admitted that he is guilty in that he has admitted he served the notices with prior knowledge of the government's injunction. However, there may be a loophole in that Kent wasn't explicitly mentioned in the injunction. The fly in the ointment is that, unfortunately, in the 2006 trial it was found that CSE and Kent are one and the same.
Personally, I hope Kent gets out so that he can devote the rest of his life to, perhaps, American prison reform leaving Eric to bore on about YECism.
Who knows, with a fully-armed Rudy Davis on point and with Rudy's cute wife Erin bringing up fresh supplies of ammo Kent might do well and one day become known as the American John Howard, an English hero from my home town.
how did kent admit he was guilty? you guys are lying and you need to stay away from these people. they admit they are lying on purpose a the free kent hovind website.
Because Kent said so on a number of his prison interviews which the IRS doubtless have also listened to.
Why do you keep accusing of us of lying when all our comments are based upon proven facts which you are at liberty to check for yourself. It is only the #FreeKentHovinds of this world whose comments are fact-free.
It might be interesting to get some feedback from any reporting that might be done regarding the Hovind demonstrations as to whether they will settle on having concealed weapons or if they will challenge any ban on open carry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Florida#Open_carry
I am pretty sure I heard Dan Bidondi say Monday night on his program that he was willing to support the idea of sending a small army to Pensacola to physically extract Kent Hovind from custody.
Someone may want to check the tape on that and see if it might be the case that somebody has tampered with that evidence.
Robert, I think Dan mentioned he would send a million men (if he had the money). As that is about the size of the Confederate army during the entire Civil War I don’t know quite how many he thinks the local Sheriff is able to muster against him, falsely suborned or otherwise.
I don't think that the Confederate Army was ever that big. Although I guess you are talking about total number who served, which sounds about right. Have to do some research back I think total under arms was never more than a quarter mil or so (think that is high actually)
Peter, I wrote "entire" Civil War. Admittedly, I wasn't there so I may be a few thousand out.
Sorry that was petty of me. According to wikipedia the records are really lousy (that is what happens when you lose). Total number who served is between 750k and 1M but could be more. Really off point. Just something I am very interested in
you all are liars and you admit you are lying on purpose. everything is documented at free kent hovind website.
shame on you all
Since anonymous did not give a link to the free kent website "where everything is documented" readers will not that there is one in the post early on
I do wonder if the Hovindicators will be showing up and taking over the discussion here. They are welcome to do so. I am just an old man with a keyboard and a hobby or two. This story is getting too busy for me to keep up with much except for maybe the substantive developments and commenting here and there and maybe returning to chat with Dan Bidondi next Monday.
For now, I will add some additional comments regarding an issue I think is often misrepresented when it comes to Hovind and his tendency not to tell the truth.
Peter wrote, in part:
"Nick Lally…greatly admires Kent and thinks he is
in prison out of principle, a perspective that I share."
So!
Kent disagrees with the law, lived a life of crime in disobedience to it, sent his wife to prison, and saddled his wife with millions in personal income tax liabilities.
Gotta love Kent Hovind, that man of principle!
Kent is living a sovereign citizen's dream and "lovin' it".
Jo Hovind not so much!
Good for Kent, but he ought to be principled enough to tell the truth about it.
As I tried to emphasize Monday night when Dan Bidondi and Rudy Davis and I were chatting about Kent's situation, Kent is welcome to disagree with the law but when he acts on his disagreement he may expect certain consequences and maybe some unintended consequences.
The lie, in my opinion, is Kent trying to convince people he really believes the law does not apply to him or that he did not break it. Kent knows the law applies to him. He just thinks that if we would let him make the rules the law would not apply to him.
Kent, in my opinion, is and has been well aware of what the law is and that he lived in violation of it for decades (in a sense, he is way ahead in the game).
Kent is a common tax scofflaw when it comes to such things. That is, many a tax cheat disagreed with the law while knowing what the law was and acted on that belief and that cost them.
Violating a law you disagree with doesn't give you a get out of jail free pass like Kent would like to be given.
Kent's conspicuous effort to lay out a "Cheek Defense" is a bit humorous.
Juries generally don't buy it.
Kent didn't even try it in his earlier trial.
Maybe he will this time around if it proceeds to trial.
Maybe not.
I figure Paul John Hansen and Kent Hovind might yet have a few tricks up their sleeves and I am interested to get it over with and see what kind of show they are going to put on, if at all.
free kent hovind website documented you lying on purpose and admitting you lie on purpose. nobody believes you guys i hope you understand that.
Ipse dixit from an anonymous whiner noted!
Typical of Hovindicators and BatyHaterz!
Come out some time and maybe we can talk about something substantive to do with Kent's legal problems.
There is nothing original or brilliant about Kent Hovind. All Hovind has is the gift of the gab combined with hard-headed stubbornness and some run of the mill business acumen, which turned out to be a toxic mix when it came to his dealings with the IRS.
Conspiracy theorists are a dime-a-dozen, and there are plenty who make a very good living out of it (Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, David Icke, etc.) without making as much as a lick of sense outside of their bubble of delusions.
What you seem to forget in your assessment of Hovind's intellect is that his constructs are a product of faux intellectualism and an extremely shallow (to the point of profound ignorance) understanding of the way the world works. His tax issues aside, Hovind's creationist constructs and arguments are simply pathetic when you put them up against the work of any of the thousands of evolutionary scientists who have dedicated their lives to improving our understanding of where we came from.
So please do not fall into the same trap as many of the followers of Jones, Ham, Beck, and other conspiracy theorists and pseudoscience by admiring Hovind's intellect. Hovind's greatest achievement is to parlay lazy thinking into a successful career using his silver tongue (well, until the IRS caught up with him).
its best you stay away from these people tacitus. go to the free kent hovind website and they document proof that these guys are making up lies on purpose
tacitus is absolutely right. I once heard Hovind claiming to have an IQ in excess of 160. If this were true (and I have a thousand good reasons to think it isn't) then it makes his claimed inability to understand a handful of sections of the tax code thoroughly disingenuous. But we already knew that.
@ Samphire
I think like Peter in believing that Kent shows signs of above average IQ. I find his performances fascinating and his mental abilities at least above mine to some considerable degree.
That doesn't mean I haven't been able to best him in our personal engagements (as well as his people that have dared to challenge me); the truth is what allowed me to beat down Kent and his people, not my superior mental skills.
I also think it needs to be emphasized that Kent Hovind most assuredly "understands" the rules and simply disagrees with them.
Here's the more important point to emphasize though; when Kent says he doesn't "understand" the rules, as he has explained himself, he simply means that he doesn't "stand under" the rules, doesn't accept their rule over him or the authority/jurisdiction of anyone above him whether it be the law or a judge.
I think that, in part, explains his little dance at his sentencing when the judge asked him if he understood the sentence she was imposing.
Cute, Kent, cute!
Real cute!
Anonymous said "nobody believes you guys i hope you understand that."
In which case, Hovind should have no trouble whatsoever in finding a sympathetic jury. I hope he does.
Robert, Kent may be cute but not as cute as Erin. But then I've always found a woman holding a bright pink Kalashnikov (or whatever) to her impressive chest completely irresistible. I wonder if she paints her bullets to match.
Kent may know a lot of dots but he is incapable of joining them. In relation to his anti-evolution views it doesn't matter what principle of biology is explained to him he can only understand it in terms of what happens in a car factory or dogs giving birth to dogs. He may have the gift of the gab and a glib Gish-style facility to switch from point to point but he is incapable of discussing any science subject to any depth. Back in the early 2000s he was often challenged to enter written debates but he always refused mainly claiming that he was a rotten typist and, in any event, was always too busy doing other things (like spending half the week in airports) to have the time to engage. Now, having written over 17(?) books and over 25,000 letters, he no longer has that lame excuse.
The evidence of his first "Ph.D thesis" is that Kent is not that bright and because of his lack of formal education he does not have the depth of knowledge in any speciality to conduct a competent discussion. Even debating fellow creationist Hugh Ross years ago on Genesis he came over as nothing more than a dilettante. And you, too, have experienced the same refusal to discuss any point to any depth or at all. If Kent ever finds that he is losing a point he immediately changes the subject. This is not the way a bright intelligence works.
But by the way, did I mention Erin's big pink gun?
@ Samphire,
When I first tried to engage Kent so many, many years ago, he snubbed me with that excuse you mention; he didn't do written debates.
Let's start the rumor that the main reason I am on Kent's case is because of that snub so many years ago.
Otherwise, I notice you do have a way with words.
Peter wrote: "I have coined the term Hovindicator, but credit should really go to the #FreeKent creator who inspired me by coining Hovindication as the true goal of the Free Kent movement. "
I prefer "Hovinid" defined as a sub-species of the genus Homo which failed to evolve beyond 9th grade and is likely to go extinct for failing to vaccinate its young or pay its taxes.